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The extremely tense political climate in the United States, fueled by President Donald Trump’s refusal to admit defeat to President-elect Joe Biden, has recently drawn public attention to the “last chance” scenario for Trump: the possibility that voters in voted in favor of Biden to “betray” and declare their votes in favor of Trump, according to an article published by Reuters. While this theoretical possibility exists, the chances of this happening in reality are slim to none, according to an opinion piece published on CNN by Robert Alexander, a political science professor with 20 years of experience studying the American electoral process. .
As is known, the American electoral system is completely different from the rest of the world, where the election of the president is not made directly, according to the popular vote of citizens with the right to vote, but indirectly, through the so-called voters.
Thus, each state is assigned, based on its demographic data, a certain number of electoral votes. Example: Pennsylvania has 20 such “voters.” The total number of electoral / voting votes in all US states is 538. Therefore, to become president-elect of the United States, a candidate must obtain 270 of those votes.
Electoral College votes are then officially announced at a solemn meeting of the United States Congress which, in the case of the 2020 presidential election, is scheduled for January 6, 2021.
US Presidential Election System: You can win the popular vote by a different vote, but in the end you get “38 electoral votes.”
The candidate who “wins the elections in a state” (based on the popular vote) automatically gets all the “voters” in his favor. Example: a victory, even by a vote difference, in a state like Pennsylvania (which has 20 electoral votes) secures the candidate 20 voters, according to the “winner takes all” system.
Important: those voters are those nominated by the party that won the elections in that state.
Example 1: Joe Biden won in Pennsylvania
The state of Pennsylvania, considered one of the “decisive” states for the battle of the 2020 US presidential elections, has 20 electoral votes.
According to forecasts, Joe Biden won in this state, with a difference of more than 60,000 votes against Trump, which means that he also “won” all 20 voters. Voters will come from the Democratic Party.
Example 2: Donald Trump won in Texas
On the other hand, Donald Trump won in Texas, a state that arrives with 38 electoral votes.
In this case, the 38 voters will be those previously established by the organization of the Republican Party of Texas and who will participate in the Electoral College meeting on December 14.
Thus, American voters in each state virtually decide the “winning party” that will nominate voters.
But these electoral votes do not work as a strictly mathematical system, by points. Because the votes ultimately belong to certain people (voters). In the history of the United States, there have been cases of so-called “infidel voters” who ultimately did not vote for the presidential candidate nominated by their own party.
How many voters have “failed” in the history of the US elections, what were the reasons and with whom did they vote?
Throughout the history of the United States, there have been 58 presidential elections, in which a total of 23,507 voters voted for a presidential candidate. Of these, only 90 “failed” and voted with another candidate.
Of the 90 “flawed” voters in US electoral history, 63 were in the 1872 election, but in a very special context: candidate Horace Greely (who lost to Ulysees S. Grant) died before the rally. Electoral College.
Only once, in 1796, did an elector betray his own candidate and voted for the opponent of the opposing party.
The 2016 elections saw a record number of 7 “infidel” voters: 5 Democratic voters “betrayed” Hillary Clinton and voted for Bernie Sanders, Collin Powel or activist Faith Spotted Eagle. Also, two Republican voters refused to vote with Trump and showed their support for the likes of John Kasich and Ron Paul.
However, these votes did not affect in any way the outcome of the 2016 election: Donald Trump won against Hillary Clinton with an electoral score of 304-227.
Furthermore, so far no presidential election has been dramatically affected, in the sense of a decisive change in results, by the vote of “disbelieving” voters, their protest vote being only marginal in the electoral mathematics of elections.
Currently, only 14 US states (a total of 121 voters) have laws that cancel the votes of “disbelieving” voters. However, mathematically there are 417 voters who can “fail” without any legal restrictions to prevent or cancel their decision.
Therefore, the possibility that a significant number of Democratic Party voters, especially from key states like Pennsylvania, will come to vote directly for Donald Trump, although it exists on paper, is extremely unlikely, almost nil, that it is possible. . and put into practice, according to Robert Alexander, CNN’s specialist on the American electoral system.
In 2008, 83% of voters were “urged” not to vote for Obama. What will happen now: “Few possibilities, but let’s not forget that we are talking about 2020”
Even if the chances of voters betraying their own candidate are small, this does not exclude the fact that, in American history, there have been documented instances of political pressure that voters have been subjected to to change their decision. politics.
In 1960, so it was, the Electoral College was pressured to avoid the election of John F. Kennedy, who had won the elections against Richard Nixon. Only one Republican voter in Oklahoma “defected” and cast his vote for outsider Harry S. Byrd.
In 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter won the US presidential election over Gerald Ford, with a difference of around 5,000 votes in Ohio and 3,000 in Hawaii, key states in that competition. After the election, Republican Bob Dole (who had run for vice president along with Ford) admitted to a Senate committee that Republicans had tried to get Democratic voters to change their votes.
In the 2008 elections, when Barrack Obama became the first black president in the history of the United States. One study found that 83% of voters had been contacted and “urged” not to vote with Obama, despite his landslide victory over John McCain (365-173).
Despite the pressure, no voter betrayed.
“It never happened (that a decisive number of unfaithful voters could change the outcome of the elections), but let’s not forget that we are still talking about 2020,” concluded Dave Daely, representative of the NGO FairVote, for Reuters.
“It never happened but let’s not forget that we are still in 2020”
“It’s never happened before, but it’s 2020,” said Dave Daley, a senior fellow at FairVote.
“A constitutional crisis is exactly what we needed during this period and it is good to avoid it,” he said.
